Month: March 2018

The Raspberry Pi Foundation has announced the new Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+. This incremental design improvement provides some interesting features.

1.4GHz 64-bit quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 CPU

Dual-band 802.11ac wireless LAN and Bluetooth 4.2

Faster Ethernet (Gigabit Ethernet over USB 2.0)

Power-over-Ethernet support (with separate PoE HAT)

Improved PXE network and USB mass-storage booting

Improved thermal management

Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+

The 5 GHz wifi and power over ethernet capabilities are especially interesting improvements. The Raspberry Pi is a great experimenter’s computer. Many amateur radio operators and makers are using them in purpose built applications such as digital hotspots and home control. You can see more here.
Update: 03/19/2018 — One difference that I failed to note betwee the RPI 3 Model B and the B+ is that while the RPi 3 Model B sported 1 GB of RAM, the B+ cuts it back down to 512 MB. While 512 MB may be enough for your application, if it is not, you may with to stick with the original RPi 3 Model B.

Update: 05/03/2018 — I have verified that RPi 3 Model B+ does still have 1 GB of RAM. The reference to 512 MB RAM came from the specifications listed on the RPi Foundation web page when originally released.

If you attended my presentation, thank you for your interest. If you have never attended a Winter SWL Fest and are interested in any aspect of radio reception, consider attending next year. All frequencies from DC to Daylight are fair game.